GrahamC

5 minutes ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

The Scott point is an interesting one. Did he make the leap a year too soon or has he made the right call.

He has had injuries and that wonderful assist v Fulham on Boxing Day but highlights have been modest for him.

Conway certainly isn't PL ready yet, a higher ranked Championship club never know.

The lone striker thing, quite a lot of clubs now play just one through the middle. Yes I know 4-3-3, 4-5-1 and 4-2-3-1 all have different characteristics and the service to our strikers has lacked at times this year.

Overall sadly I don't see him signing. Having said that the play until May 2025 and take a Tribunal I'd be inclined to favour.

The rumour is that Scott went from being on £4k a week with us to £40k a week at Bournemouth.

He’s been on the pitch for at least part of 18 Premiership games so far this season.

I’ll be amazed if he has even a moment of reflection as to whether it was a year too soon.

As for Conway, like you I’ll be shocked if he signs another contract with us, & think that his next destination will be better than some on here.

Wolves have been rumoured of late, plus if either Southampton or Ipswich went up I could see him at either of those.

46 minutes ago, LondonBristolian said:

I'm going to play Devil's advocate a little here. Whilst there's plenty of good reasons to be sceptical of the board's willingness to spend, bringing in "one or two" doesn't automatically equate to spending less.

The "one or two" are presumably a striker and a permanent solution to the Twine loan (i.e. either Twine or a player who can play the same role). Strikers and attacking midfielders are the two most expensive positions to sign and there is a valid argument for saying "let's concentrate all our resources on those two positions" rather than spreading the budget thinly and therefore spending less of the budget - whatever that budget is - on the two key positions.

With Bird coming in and if no departures, I honestly think that our defence, full backs and midfield are not in urgent need of signings and - whilst there is certainly a case for competition for Max O'Leary, I think O'Leary is good enough as a goalkeeper. Everyone is upgradeable of course but I'd be relaxed going into next season with our current defence, our current goalkeeping options and our current midfield (plus Bird, less one of James or Williams, with a possibility Murphy or Stokes will be ready to compete for a place).

However I think we need to get the striker and attacking midfielder correct and I think doing that is far more important than several signings. Obviously all this depends on how much the board are actually providing as a budget and if it is sufficient but I'm going to judge the club on how much we're prepared to spend rather than how many players we're prepared to spend it on. 

Agree.

In summary if we pick up cover for Max (almost certainly an out of contract keeper with Championship/L1 experience), a number 10 and a striker at circa £3m each, that’s our summer business done unless Conway leaves or the likes of Cornick or even Naismith are moved on.

Nothing like the fanciful £15m-£18m mentioned on a podcast but enough to strengthen us in the obvious areas.

Williams possibly, Conway no chance.

1 hour ago, eardun said:

Won’t be open for moves/sales yet: 

RENEW YOUR SEAT DEADLINE
12pm Tuesday, April 23^rd

MOVE YOUR SEAT
Between 10am and 5pm Wednesday, April 24^th

MEMBERS SALE
10am Thursday, April 25^th

You can buy a seat that’s not currently taken at any time.

You don’t have to wait for move your seat day, that’s specifically for seats currently held by ST holders that are becoming vacant.

I renewed, switched stand (along with 4 others) back on April 10th.

1 hour ago, 1960maaan said:

I really think he has talent, but whether bad attitude , laziness or just a bit of a Billy Big Suds he does seem to have to move on a lot. You kind of hope that one time would be a wake up call and he'd make the most of his talent. 
Maybe next time.

Since breaking in to our first team he’s had a loan at Ipswich, who didn’t want to keep him, a move to Sheffield Wednesday where he fell out of favour very quickly (16 starts) & now he’s out in the cold at Charlton.

There’s a pattern, you asked if it’s bad attitude, laziness or Billy big bollocks?

It’s all 3, as @Northern Red said he’s heading out of the football league at this rate.

Pearson told him he was a waster, he was right.

39 minutes ago, ExiledAjax said:

Thangam Debbonnaire (sp?)

Explains why she was wearing their abomination of a shirt, election year.

8 minutes ago, ExiledAjax said:

Rovers are currently getting a worryingly large number of mentions in the second reading of the Football Governance Bill (because the MP for their area is shadow DCMS Secretary).

Is that Darren Jones?

11 minutes ago, Lrrr said:

As much as young & hungry is said I don't think an older 'hungry' player would be dismissed if they have the quality & still pull the physical levels we require, more then just a case of are they the right fit. 

Hope so, but not how it came across.

54 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

He talks with great passion and depth about the academy doesn’t he?  From a first team point of view, it’s a bit more “we’ve got a plan” without really going into much depth about what the plan entails.  Some of that I put down to the two interviewers, they didn’t ask questions to allow / offer Tins the chance to expand.

The “plan” clearly involves “young, hungry” players.

He says the same thing about six times..

Certainly makes the point that we won’t be signing “31 year olds looking for a last big payday”.

This is a very simplistic answer, the likes of Wilbraham & Wade Elliott show that you can get real value from older players.

Dismisses the question about the value of King & James very swiftly, too..

54 minutes ago, Henry said:

Is this the Tony Wilkins one? Find it really strange he’d make to be associated with him. 

Is that real?

Christ.

4 minutes ago, And Its Smith said:

Is this on Spotify only?

Believe so.

Definitely worth a listen.

Tinnion comes across as the right person to be in charge of the Academy structure & his point about how our overall recruitment has improved is spot on, but you have to be blind to think he’s qualified to be a Technical Director, really unprofessional in some of his comments & can’t help himself in revealing fees we’ve paid.

Completely innumerate too, as his comment on the 2 Coventry signings shows.

Last point, he says on numerous occasions that we’re bringing in “one or two” this summer, so even if TC’s possible departure changes that, it will only be slightly, there clearly won’t be a large number of arrivals.

12 minutes ago, exAtyeoMax said:

sounds like Scooby Doo.

If it wasn't for those pesky kids…

Perhaps when he takes the mask off it won’t be the janitor, it will be a competent chairman..

Sorry, a bit too far fetched.

1 hour ago, Lrrr said:

Maddox and Kane at least weren’t released though, they were pinched through EPPP

None of those 3 named has made it at Championship level, either.

Kane had one season at it earlier in his career, Maddox never got near it & is now a sub at a team about to exit the Football League.

Scott was let go by Cincinatti after 4 games.

1 hour ago, Redstart said:

Get Warnock in there

Aberdeen would give him a glowing reference, 2 points out of 24 in the league..

Return of Michael Duff?

No.

Vince Harper got back in the league via Eastleigh & is now at Exeter.

Conor Lemonheigh-Evans did the same at Torquay & is now at Stockport.

Exceptions to the rule & no-one has made it at Championship level yet.

35 minutes ago, Chairman Mao said:

Kalifa Cissé and Albert Adomah were pretty good though. A big miss was not resigning Paul Hartley but he wanted to go back to Scotland iirc.  

Adomah was a Gary Johnson signing, it had been done months before.

I knew someone who told me he was signing well before GJ was sacked.

Cisse was ok, but we really only had one good year from him.

He was left out at the start of his second season with us because he was after a pay rise on his current deal.

Coppell didn’t seem bothered about moving on one of the best right backs in the division in Bradley Orr & replacing him with the (higher wages) of Nicky Hunt, who was litter.

As has been said already, his heart was never in it, SL should have recognised this.

7 minutes ago, Bristol Oil Services said:

I suppose most people's idea of us "going for it" is football people choosing the footballers, and Steve keeping well out of it/just "signing the cheques"

True, but signing England’s goalkeeper (his last club game, an FA Cup final) is hardly getting a bloke from down the pub, is it?

If Coppell’s first picks were Nicky Hunt & Damion Stewart then perhaps it’s a very good thing that he left so quickly.

43 minutes ago, phantom said:

Tony Dinning

Gnonto went on strike at the start of the season at Leeds to try & force a move to Everton through.

Dinning absolutely had us over, he promised whilst on loan to move down here if we signed him permanently but when we did, refused to do so.

Another of Tinnion’s brilliant signings as manager.

3 minutes ago, David Brent said:

I watched Coppell’s ATK team in India a few years ago. He had a few jobs for someone who walked away from football when he quit here. 

India isn’t exactly the same is it?

Pub league standard.

He hasn’t gone near a job at a serious level since.

13 minutes ago, Sixtyseconds said:

A forty year old underpants model to play in goal. 

 

 

That is massive hindsight.

As has already been pointed out, his last game before joining was at a World Cup for England & his career was stellar.

Easy to say now he was on a very quick decent in terms of standards (though he did still have some exceptional games for us).

Probably the same people moaning will be those saying we never “go for it”.

Very strange man.

I understood why we appointed him, but don’t think we thought through the fact he wasn’t interested in taking over straight away.

He’s never managed at a decent level since then, perhaps those who think he was the right appointment should reflect on that.

Just now, IAmNick said:

This was against Birmingham wasn't it? Unless I'm thinking of another goal / my mind is playing tricks on me. From near the halfway line in front of the old Williams stand?

Pretty sure it was Leicester because they had Chris Weale in goal.

7 hours ago, Swede said:

I think we're seeing of late exactly the the reason we signed him in the first place. Re signing him is a no brainer.

I would re sign James as well but I guess we can't have everyone. We will be losing King (sadly) so there's where Bird steps in.

It seems to me that a lot depends on where the club sees the midfield structure.

All sentiment aside, when both James and Williams were signed it would've been on lucrative contracts & someone correct me if I'm wrong but the rules governing football contracts are that we have to offer the same terms (or more) or they can go to the open market.

Could be wrong but I really don’t think we are signing Bird to replace King.

I think he’s coming in as either James or Williams replacement.

No way did we ever expect King who was 35 in October to be in the squad over 30 times already this season.

That’s down to the unavailability of Naismith, Benarous & post January, possibly Murphy.

If Williams stays (James then goes), I think our 4 senior midfielders will be Knight, Bird, TGH & Williams.

In the absence of any of those then an Academy player, Stokes or Murphy will probably be in the squad.

To answer your point about contracts, both are of an age where they could go to the open market whatever we offered them.

1 minute ago, Ziderarmy said:

Like the last 12 games hasn’t been pointless? 

Totally pointless, but I presume that either we felt he was a better option than Academy players or there was some contractual obligation to include him, even though it was very obvious he was never coming on.

I know I got a few facepalm reactions at the time but I saw enough against QPR to know he was just miles adrift of what we were after & I’d have stopped bothering with him straight after that.

32 minutes ago, WolfOfWestStreet said:

Dave. If Joe Williams was a free agent tomorrow, what club(s) do you think would be in for him. 

Preston, Stoke, Blackburn & if they stay up, Sheffield Wednesday.

I’m aware I’m not Dave..